Highlights
Rapid Generation and Screening of Complex Polymer Morphologies

Block copolymers, with their complex morphologies, are widely used in many applications. A grand challenge associated with these materials is accelerating their design and discovery.

UC Santa Barbara MRSEC researchers have developed a versatile and efficient strategy by rapidly building expansive, high-quality, and detailed block copolymer libraries through a combination of controlled polymerization and chromatographic separation. X-ray scattering studies aid in screening block copolymer morphology.

A family of 16 parent diblock copolymers was synthesized and separated, leading to over 300 distinct and well-defined samples at the multigram scale, and spanning a wide range of compositions with exceptional resolution in volume fraction and domain spacing.

The precise location of order-order boundaries and the identification of morphologies with extremely narrow windows of stability are possible with these methods.

Scheme of the synthesis and separation of block copolymers and a typical morphology analysis as a function of molecular weight and phase fraction.

Scheme of the synthesis and separation of block copolymers and a typical morphology analysis as a function of molecular weight and phase fraction. Image source: Murphy, Skala, Kottage, Kohl, Li, Zhang, Hawker, Bates
Scheme of the synthesis and separation of block copolymers and a typical morphology analysis as a function of molecular weight and phase fraction. Image source: Murphy, Skala, Kottage, Kohl, Li, Zhang, Hawker, Bates
Share:

See Original File

See the original highlight
Download

Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UCSB

The NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at UC Santa Barbara develops and sustains a productive, collaborative, and engaged community that drives a portfolio of transformative materials research and empowers a diverse workforce.